Greetings! I purchased a 2004 Glastron GX185 with a Volvo Penta 3.0 GLM-C and SX Cobra outdrive last week. Boat and engine looked good on visual inspection, and the engine fired right up and idled very smooth (using muffs & hose). I didn't ask for a water test (mistake!) becuase the owner had just broken his leg in a motorcycle accident, and his Ebay listing stated the boat had "just been serviced and water tested and runs great". He also had documentation from a service center in NC showing that they had "cleaned the carb, replaced the thermostat, installed a new prop, and serviced the impeller", so I accepted the risk, paid for the boat, and headed home. Took the boat out this past weekend and things quickly went south. Hard to start, but then idled just fine. However, everytime I put in forward and tried to ease into the throttle it died. I called the seller, who told me that it was doing that before he had it serviced and the mechanic told him he had solved the problem. The seller then admitted that he had not water tested the boat himself. He said that he was able to get past the "dead spot" by going from idle to WOT and then easing it back. I followed his instructions, it worked, and we cruised smoothly for 3-5 minutes at 3500 RPM, unitl the engine started to over heat (225F) and the larm sounded. I immediately backed off to idle, shut it down, and called the seller back again. This time he says "When it does that, you need to trim up and back off the throttle a little bit. It normally runs about 175F". I knew at this point that something was sketchy, at best. The engine was hard to restart, but did, and I operated it for about 10 minutes at 2500RPM (very smooth) to a local marina to get fuel. When I slowed to wake speed, the engine sounded and felt like it had the biggest cam shaft in the world in it (missing) and died. I refueled and attempted to leave about 15 minutes later, and the engine was a very hard start. I then took it back to the launch ramp (15 mins at 2500RPM - very smooth), where it died when I down throttled to idle. I loaded the boat by hand, brought it home, and called the seller to let him know there were some significant issues and that I would be taking the boat to a service center to be inspected and diagnosed. The service technician said he couldn't find anything obvious during the visual inspetion and conducted a compression test that revealed the following: #1@20lbs; #2@150lbs; #3@150lbs; and #4@50lbs. He stated that he couldn't pin-point the cause without a tear-down, but said it could be a blown head gasket or cracked head or block, or even bad piston rings, but thought that only two cylinders being "bad" was unlikely. There is not any water in the oil and the engine did not overheat when it was operated near/below WOT. He did say that the low compression in the two cylinders would have been the cause of all the symptoms I described, and that the "services" described by the seller were probably attempts to conduct R&R to solve the problem. I would greatly appreciate any input or opinions anyone would like to share. The seller has stopped responding to my messages since I described the technician's findings to him, so I am assuming getting anything out of him ain't going to be easy! Thanks for your time.
